Balcony Fall
'''Location: '''Gulf Shores, Alabama '''Date: '''April 10, 1992 Story On April 10, 1992, sixteen-year-old Andrea Jones and her best friend, Rachel Koets, were enjoying their last night of spring vacation in the beach town of Gulf Shores, Alabama. After an evening of socializing, they returned to the Jones family condominium shortly before their midnight curfew. Although they said good night to Andrea's mother, Kathy, and pretended to go to bed, they secretly had other plans. They wanted to meet up with some boys they had met earlier that night for a final late night beach party. Leaving through the front door would be too easier, they thought, so they decided to climb down the balconies from the sixth floor condo to the ground. Recalls Rachel, "Andrea looked at me and said, 'Do you think we can scale the wall?' And instantly I thought, hey, that would be cool because Andrea and I never did anything exciting or rebellious." Rachel, who stands five feet ten inches, would go first in order to help Andrea, since the reach between balconies would be a more difficult stretch for her five-foot-three friend. Rachel climbed over the Jones' railing, clung to the balcony bars, and easily dropped to the fifth floor porch below. Andrea swung herself over the railing, and Rachel successfully helped pull her down to the porch. They repeated their moves on the fourth floor balcony. Kristine Kuhn, who was watching television with a girlfriend inside her third floor condo, was startled to see a girl land on her balcony. She watched as Rachel struggled to pull Andrea's feet down. But her grip on the railing above was weakened by dew, her legs were flailing, and she screamed that she was going to slip. Before Rachel could grab hold of her legs, she lost her grip and fell twenty-five feet, landing on her back on the concrete pool area below. Rachel rushed downstairs while Kristine called 911. "Can you hear me? Can you hear me?" Rachel shouted to motionless Andrea. "There was blood coming from behind her ear, and her eyes were bulging out of her head," said Kristine. "It was like a horror movie, right before my eyes, and I just couldn't believe it was real." "I thought that she was dead, and all I could think about was our parents. How was I going to explain this--that we did this for a bunch of guys?" said Rachel. Fortunately, witnesses at the scene knew enough not to move Andrea, and Rachel covered her with a blanket to help prevent shock. Within five minutes of the call, the Gulf Shores Fire and Rescue Department arrived, led by paramedic corporal Mitchell Simms. "In my experience with patients who have fallen, the outcome is usually very poor," said Simms. "Time is so critical with trauma victims. Because of the brain's swelling from injury, there can be irreversible brain damage." Kathy and her husband, Jerry, rushed down to the pool area as soon as they were notified about the accident. "Words can't describe what it's like to see your child suffering and in pain," said Kathy. "All I kept thinking was, 'Please God, take care of her and keep her alive." "Deep in my heart," said Simms, "I did not think that this girl was going to make it. I looked at one of the guys on the ambulance and told him that her mother's heart was probably going to be broken." Andrea was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, where a trauma team awaited her arrival. "Apparently, she landed right on her head," said Dr. James Luker, the emergency physician leading the team. "That kind of impact delivers a terrific force, and my first thought was, "This is a 16-year-old who won't go back home.'" Emergency nurse Donna Russell was one of those also treating Andrea. "She was jerking her body in a way we call 'posturing', which is indicative of brain damage," said Russell. "Very rarely do people with this kind of injury survive, and in our hearts we thought she was going to die." When Dr. Luker studied the X-rays and the CT scan, he was amazed to discover that the only injury Andrea had sustained was to her head. He was also discouraged, because it appeared to be quite severe. Over the next twelve hours, her condition deteriorated as her brain continued to swell. The pressure inside her skull was at 88 on a scale on which sustained readings above 30 predict mortality. Doctors decided to perform an unusual emergency procedure and remove part of her skull. "This was a last ditch effort," said Dr. Luker. "The chances of survival in a person who has this degree of injury are very, very small." Meanwhile, Kathy continued to maintain her faith in Andrea's recovery. "I just kept thinking, 'Fix her up and I'll take her home," said Kathy. Then one of the doctors came to ask her the question they are required by law to ask the families of victims in whom brain death may be imminent. "I may come back to you at a later time," he said, "and ask you to give permission for your daughter's organs to be harvested." "It wasn't until then that I realized how serious this was and that she could die," said Kathy. After the operation to relieve the pressure on her brain, Andrea was in a coma. "The question," said Russell, "was if she did survive, what to do? We use an awfully harsh term in the medical profession--we call them vegetables. They lie there. You sprinkle them. You feed them. They grow. You hurt for the patient. You hurt for the family." "We followed the nurse into Andrea's room," said Kathy, speaking of her first visit to Andrea's bedside. "We saw her lying in bed, and she was perfectly still. All I could think was, 'Please, recover so I can talk to you again.'" A week later, on Good Friday, a nurse came to bring Kathy and Jerry what she described as "the best Easter gift they could have." "We walked into her room," said Kathy, "and she was sitting up in her chair. The week after, she was walking in the halls, joking with the nurses, complaining about the food." In July, the missing piece of Andrea's skull was replaced, and she proceeded with a rapid and complete recovery. One of the hardest things for both her and Rachel, who was still haunted by guilt, was reconstructing their friendship. "Rachel feels very guilty," said Andrea, six months after the accident. "And sometimes she stays away a little bit." "It's hard for me to deal with everything that happened," said Rachel. "We're not as close as we used to be. I wish that we were. I'd give everything that I own to have things back the way they were." "I really want to be her friend so much again," said Andrea. "I think that she needs me as a friend again to let her know that I am okay. You should think before you do things, because you can hurt people who really do love you. You're hurting them, you're hurting yourself, and you're missing life. "It's a super miracle that she's with us," said Jerry. "I want to thank the people who gave their prayers and best wishes to us--I want to thank them all." "I'm very lucky to have my daughter back with me," said Kathy. "Every day, I cherish the knowledge that I can see hear, that I can talk to her, and that she is still part of our family." "I would have bet a million dollars that she'd be lying in bed for the rest of her life," said another one of Andrea's friends. "But to see her today, walking, talking, and cheerleading, it's just wonderful." Category:1992 Category:Alabama Category:Falls Category:Head Traumas Category:Bleeding